page_title: Leningrad Oblast
section_title: Pre-Leningrad Oblast
hierarchical_section_title: Leningrad Oblast / History / Pre-Leningrad Oblast
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Крепость «Старая Ладога» (Санкт-Петербург и Лен.область, Новая Ладога, село Старая Ладога) This is a photo of a cultural heritage object in Russia, number: 4710025000 This template and pages using it are maintained by the Russian WLM team. Please read the guidelines before making any changes that can affect the monuments database!
context_page_description: Leningrad Oblast is a federal subject of Russia. It was established on August 1, 1927, although it was not until 1946 that the oblast's borders had been mostly settled in their present position. The oblast was named after the city of Leningrad. Unlike the city, the oblast retains the name of Leningrad.
  The oblast overlaps the historic region of Ingria and is bordered by Finland in the northwest and Estonia in the west, as well as five federal subjects of Russia: the Republic of Karelia in the northeast, Vologda Oblast in the east, Novgorod Oblast in the south, Pskov Oblast in the southwest, and the federal city of Saint Petersburg in the west.
  The first governor of Leningrad Oblast was Vadim Gustov. The current governor, since 2012, is Aleksandr Drozdenko.
  The oblast has an area of 84,500 square kilometers and a population of 1,716,868; up from 1,669,205 recorded in the 2002 Census. The most populous town of the oblast is Gatchina, with 88,659 inhabitants. Leningrad Oblast is highly industrialized.
context_section_description: The territory of present-day Leningrad Oblast was populated shortly after the end of the Weichselian glaciation and now hosts numerous archaeological remnants. The Volga trade route and trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks crossed the territory. Staraya Ladoga, the first capital of legendary Rurik, founded in the 8th-9th century, is situated in the east of the oblast, on the Volkhov River.
  In the 12th-15th century, the territory was divided between the Kingdom of Sweden and Novgorod Republic (see Swedish-Novgorodian Wars) and populated mostly by various Baltic Finns people such as Karelians (northwest), Izhorians and Votes (west), Vepsians (east), as well as Ilmen Slavs of Novgorod (south). During the Russo-Swedish Wars of the 15th-17th centuries, the border moved back and forth over the land.
  The central part of the territory is known as the historical region of Ingria (or the land of Izhora) and in the 17th century, after most of the present-day territory of Leningrad Oblast was captured by Sweden with the Treaty of Stolbovo of 1617, became subject to substantial Finnish Lutheran population influx from Finnish Karelia (which included Karelian Isthmus, the northwestern part of present-day Leningrad Oblast) and Savonia. Having faced the religious pressure from Lutheran pastors and Swedish authorities, local Orthodox population of Russian and Finnic ancestry massively fled from Ingria to neighbour Russian provinces, so Ingrian Finns soon became the dominant ethnic group.
  During the Great Northern War (1700–1721) the territory of what is now Leningrad Oblast was returned from Sweden by Russia under Peter the Great, who founded Saint Petersburg amidst the land in 1703, which soon became the capital of the Russian Empire.  In 1708, most of the territory was organized into Ingermanland Governorate under Governor General Alexander Menshikov. It was renamed Saint Petersburg Governorate in 1710 (the borders of that governorate, however, differed very significantly from those of the present-day oblast and included much of the areas of current Novgorod, Pskov, and Vologda Oblasts). In 1721, the territorial concessions of Sweden were confirmed with the Treaty of Nystad.
  The life of the countryside was greatly influenced by the vicinity of the imperial capital, which became a growing market for its agricultural production as well as the main consumer of its mineral and forest resources. In 1719–1810, Ladoga Canal was dug between the Svir River and the Neva River as part of the Volga-Baltic waterway to bypass stormy waters of Lake Ladoga. Since the advent of the rail transport in the late 19th century, the areas in the vicinity of Saint Petersburg had been a popular summer resort destinations (dachas) for its residents. However, while Saint Petersburg itself from the very beginning was populated mostly by Russians, it was not until the 20th century that its surrounding population was Russified.
  In 1914, with the beginning of World War I, Saint Petersburg was renamed Petrograd and the governorate was accordingly renamed Petrograd Governorate. After the Russian Revolution, in 1918, the capital was transferred from Petrograd to Moscow, farther from the borders of the country. In 1919, during the Russian Civil War, the Northwestern White Army advancing from Estonia and led by Nikolai Yudenich tried to capture Petrograd and even managed to reach its southern outskirts, but the attack against the Red Army under Leon Trotsky ultimately failed, and Yudenich retreated back. The border with Estonia was established in the Russian-Estonian Treaty of Tartu of 1920. Finland-backed Ingrian Finns of North Ingria attempted to secede in 1918–1920, but were incorporated back with the Russian-Finnish Treaty of Tartu, which settled the border between Finland and Soviet Russia. In 1924, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad and Petrograd Governorate was again renamed accordingly (Leningrad Governorate).
caption: The fortress in Staraya Ladoga
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